


In sickness and in health

by WriteForTheSakeOfWriting



Category: The Pinkertons (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteForTheSakeOfWriting/pseuds/WriteForTheSakeOfWriting
Summary: Kate feels no fear of taking him down a notch when he deserves it like virtually everyone around him, but she is one of few who will build him back up when he begins to circle in on himself. They’re friends now, close friends even, the kind who accidentally fall asleep in the other’s dorm room when they finish problem sets or movie nights at 2 am, who send each other chats of all the ridiculous moments of their day and who can rely on the other to not leave them sitting alone in the cafeterias or the library. The friends with bets placed on when they’ll hook up, who aren’t believed when they show up to breakfast together and deny fulfilling the terms of that bet.They’re the kind of friends who bring the other Gatorade when they’re sick.
Relationships: William Pinkerton/Kate Warne
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU prompt: I have a really bad cold and you're the only person in this library who isn't giving me the evil eye, but I just spilled my tea/soup/water on you

Will barely endures physics on a good day, so let’s just say today’s head cold is not helping at all as he desperately tries to complete the problem set and study for next week’s test. He is unfortunately not sick enough to justify failing to complete the work but he still feels bad enough that he is struggling excessively with a basic problem.

He sniffs again, blowing his nose into yet another tissue. That earns him a glare from the student sitting down the row from him and the one directly opposite. Will might feel bad if they were not both wearing headphones and were subsequently required to listen to his suffering.

He is halfway through the next problem, having finally figured out how to apply the basic equations he has been using all semester when the next coughing fit starts. It lasts perhaps half a minute and leaves his throat feeling as if it has been scraped clean with sandpaper.

Clichéd though it is he feels like hell and his brain is running at minimal capacity.

He drinks greedily from the thermos flask of tea he brought with him. It reminds him of home, of his mother making him tea and toast on days he was home sick from school and gently fussing over him when he really did feel terrible.

Will squeezes his eyes tightly shut and opens them again. The fluorescent lighting is beginning to hurt his head and he knows the longer he spends feeling sorry for himself, the harder it will be to get today’s studying done.

Despite feeling grateful that he doesn’t have class today, he is desperate to go to bed.

He coughs again and a few more students glare at him.

Within listening distance, there are probably ten or twelve students, and admittedly Will is on the mostly silent floor, but every single kid is wearing headphones so forgive him for not feeling sympathetic.

Moreover, blowing his nose has started to hurt because the skin on his nose is so sore and so his life seems to be speeding downhill from here.

He is aware of the sniffling noise he is making every time he breathes and it is beginning to annoy him too. However, he doesn’t want to surrender yet because he is so close to completing the problems and finishing editing his notes from yesterday’s lectures, which are a little incomprehensible because his head cold had already started then.

One student has started glaring at him if he so much as sniffs loudly, which feels excessive, but almost all of them are now justifiably angry with him. Will understands, but wishes they would turn their music up and move on with their lives.

However, when one female student loudly and obnoxiously shushes him, Will starts to get frustrated. He is not trying to be annoying and he does not enjoy suffering a cold.

He drinks more tea and sips at his water, which helps to settle his throat and clear his head.

He notices then how many people are glaring at him: virtually every student he can see. The only exception is a brunette woman, two seats down from him and one row across, who remains entirely focused on her own work, her headphones sitting firmly on her ears.

The girl shushing him has continued to do so and Will is fed up. Sighing, he gathers his books and papers together, putting them into his backpack. The downward movement has made his head and sinuses pulse so he sits still for a moment till it stops.

It is then that the only person not involved in this not quite silent standoff becomes involved. The brunette pulls off her headphones and sets them down loudly on her desk.

In a voice slightly above a whisper, she hisses angrily at the other students.

“Would you please shut up? He can’t help being sick, but you can avoid being so annoying.” With a final roll of her eyes, she sets her headphones back on her head and flips to the next page of her textbook.

Will is grateful for her intervention but the strain on his eyes is getting worse and he desperately needs a nap or more tea, or both.

He stands, swings his backpack over his shoulders and grabs his flask of tea and his water bottle. The students around him look happy to see him go and Will is beyond caring.

Walking towards the exit, he pauses to check his pockets for his phone and ID. Satisfied he has them both, he continues towards the door, glad to be done with the silent room and the judgment of his peers.

Unfortunately, the distraction of said judgments and his current limited brain capacity cause him to miss the raised outlets in the middle of the floor.

His foot hits them and he nearly goes flying. Thankfully he regains his balance but it appears that he did not fully fasten the lid of his water bottle when he got up from his seat. The water previously within makes a delicate arc, high through the air, seeming to hang still for a second as Will’s eyes go wide in horror.

It falls as one might expect it to, soaking the back of the young woman who had gotten involved on his own behalf in the process and Will groans to himself.

She makes a noise almost like a squeal and jumps up from her seat. Immediately, she sweeps her wet hair off her back and up into a ponytail, and pulls off her soaking sweatshirt, revealing a grey t-shirt with large damp spots all over her back.

Will cringes and steps forward to help, but she has quickly gathered her files together and is slotting them into her bag. He tries to apologize but then one of the librarians appears and asks them both to leave.

As they walk down the stairs, Will successfully apologizes but she brushes it off, telling him she hopes he feels better soon and to try honey and lemon if he hasn’t already. He explains that he has been carrying a flask of hot tea around with him for days, his Scottish mother’s favourite remedy, but he’ll try anything at this point.

They part ways outside the library, with the young woman heading towards her dorm to change and Will heading to the nearest café to make another flask of tea.

* * *

He sees her again in the cafeteria that evening as he carefully serves himself tomato soup, one of a few things he can eat today.

They end up sitting together, Will’s friends happening to be acquaintances of hers and she tells the story of his awful sniffling, which ended with him dumping water all over her. He cringes, regretting the small size of his college, but laughs along with them, until he’s reduced to a hacking, painful cough.

After they finish eating, Will heads straight from the cafeteria to his dorm, collapsing with a thump onto his bed and pulling on his softest, most comfortable pyjamas and huddling beneath the blankets.

Kate remains “someone he knows” until flu season hits in February and half the campus seems to be taken down by it. For once, Will doesn’t catch it but after two kids are rushed to the hospital, dehydrated and feverish, classes are cancelled for the next week. He somehow finds himself spending the next few days doing tea and soup runs between dorm rooms and the cafeteria, hoping not to catch it. It appears he isn’t going to be catching the illness, but with so many students sick and so many taking the opportunity to catch up on sleep and work, campus feels deserted.

He sees Kate in the cafeteria on the second day. She looks, bluntly, terrible; pale, tired, and desperately in need of tea as his mother would say.

He sits next to her and hands her a bottle of water he picked up on his way around the food.

“Promise not to throw it at me?” he jokes quietly.

She startles a little but nods slowly.

“If you’re sick, I don’t think you should be near the food.”

She shakes her head. “I did have something but I’m better now, just exhausted. All my friends are either sleeping or sick, and I’m just hungry.”

Will sighs and gets up from the table. He brings her a bowl of soup and one of the many mugs of honey and lemon the kitchen staff have made up tonight.

She smiles gratefully at him and slowly drinks the soup, following it with the warm mug of effectively pure sugar.

They sit and chat for a while, about classes and mutual friends, including the one who slept in his dorm’s common room almost naked, feverish and slightly delusional, but then Kate almost falls asleep sitting up and they decide to call it a night.


	2. Chapter 2

They quickly become friends enough to say hi to each other in the hallway and eat meals together occasionally.

Will thinks there might be something beneath the surface but he isn’t sure, and there’s always the fear he’s reading his own emotion into the situation. He flirts with her though, as he flirts with everyone, but this means a little more to him. He isn’t sure how they gradually become closer over the next few months, they do have mutual friends and are now at least acquaintances with many of the other’s friends. It feels as if they became close simply because they are suited to one another, even if Will can’t point exactly to what they have in common.

She smiles at him more than she smiles at anyone else, he thinks, and she lets him at least begin his ridiculous stories while most of his friends have long since taken to shouting him down if he so much as starts to say “something like that once happened…” He feels strangely comfortable around her; normally the presence of the women he fancies leads him to become even clumsier and more awkward but, around Kate, he retains both his balance and nominally his composure.

Kate feels no fear of taking him down a notch when he deserves it like virtually everyone around him, but she is one of few who will build him back up when he begins to circle in on himself. They’re friends now, close friends even, the kind who accidentally fall asleep in the other’s dorm room when they finish problem sets or movie nights at 2 am, who send each other chats of all the ridiculous moments of their day and who can rely on the other to not leave them sitting alone in the cafeterias or the library. The friends with bets placed on when they’ll hook up, who aren’t believed when they show up to breakfast together and deny fulfilling the terms of that bet.

They’re the kind of friends who bring the other Gatorade when they’re sick.

* * *

Kate doesn’t join the regular group for dinner one Wednesday in March and Will notices immediately. He doesn’t comment until half an hour after their normal meeting time of “about seven” has passed and they are all descending upon the Wednesday night cookies with abandon.

Will asks after Kate and Annalee just laughs. Her girlfriend Miyo, a more recent addition to their dinner group, smiles at him and suggests she might be catching up on the work she missed from their government class today. He nods slowly; it would not be unheard of for Kate to act so. Still, he recognizes that it’s strange that she would skip out on cookies and food altogether. She had told him once of getting wrapped in an essay the second semester of freshman year and missing lunch and dinner then waking up in the middle of the night starving and subsequently always remembering to eat.

Walking towards the kitchen, he wraps one peanut butter cookie and one triple chocolate cookie in napkins and follows his friends as they leave. He peels away from the group and heads towards Kate’s dorm. Suddenly as he stands outside her room after one of her roommates lets him into the common room on her way out, he feels stupid. What if she doesn’t want to see him because she is buried under a pile of government notes or an essay or does not want to see anyone? He shakes it off and knocks on the door. He has cookies.

When he receives no response, he knocks again. “Kate, are you there?”

Silence.

“Kate I brought you one of the peanut butter cookies you like.”

“Will?” the voice sounds muffled and distant.

Will responds in the affirmative and eventually the door opens. Kate looks much as she had done the night they talked during the “flu-pocalypse”, tired and sincerely in need of help.

“Here’s your cookie.” He feels helpless but hands it to her, trying to smile.

“Thanks,” she begins but is interrupted by a painful sounding cough.

Will shakes his head and hands her the bottle of water he had picked up for himself. Kate blinks her eyes tightly shut and opens them again but appears to be focusing on some distant point just over Will’s shoulder.

“Kate, sit down before you pass out.”

She huffs at him, or rather whoever is stood slightly to his right behind him. “I’m fine! I’m just a little tired.”

Will stares her down. “Catherine Warne,” both parts of her full name get him a glare, “You are clearly sick and, as your friend, I am strongly suggesting you go to bed.”

She huffs at him again, hinting at just how ill she is that she could not summon up the eloquent response she normally did. Kate turns around, sitting down on her bed with a slight groan. Will pulls the chair out from her desk and sits at it, watching her pull her blankets over her shoulders as she huddles on her bed. She’s nibbling at the cookie he brought her, sipping frequently from the bottle of water, and Will feels a tug of concern as loud, confident Kate hides from the world under a blanket.

“Alright,” he stands after realizes both that Kate is in no fit state for conversation and it would be a little weird for him to just sit there as she tries to sleep. “I’m going to get you a Gatorade and maybe some crackers if there’s any in the vending machine.”

Kate sat up straight and tried to dissuade him. “Really, I don’t need you to.”

“Kate, I’m your friend, so I am going to get you Gatorade and crackers. And the notes from the economics of American history class tomorrow, okay?”

Kate tugged the blanket a little closer but shook her head even as she sipped slowly from the water bottle. “I don’t need you to do that Will. I’ve been doing fine on the online recordings and seminar notes, honestly.”

Will walked towards the door and turned back to look at her. “You may not need it but I’m going to go it all anyway because I care about you.”

With that embarrassing revelation out in the open, Will walked out of Kate’s room, through the common room and out into the corridor, occasionally pausing to shake his head at himself. He walked down the stairs and to the main common room, stopping at the vending machine. After fighting with the combinations for a surprisingly long time, Will successfully purchases two bottles of Gatorade and a bag of goldfish crackers.

He returns to her room and knocks on the door. Kate lets him in and the smile she gives him very nearly knocks him off his feet. It’s open and unguarded, rare to see from Kate and one he has not seen this entire month.

“Thanks, Will.” She’s still smiling at him and he feels his own face split into a smile.

He hands her the Gatorade and the goldfish and follows her back into her bedroom. She puts them down on her bedside table and sits back on the bed, rewrapping herself in the blanket. Will hasn’t sat down when he glances at his watch and realizes it’s almost 10 pm. While that’s not normally a problem for the two of them, as they frequently have conversations that stretch long past midnight, possibly the one piece of health-related advice his mother had successfully drummed into his head was sick people need rest. He looks at her, huddled small on her bed and looking for all the world like she may very well fall asleep where she is sat. Will realizes suddenly then that she has been like this all day and possibly most of yesterday but through sheer stubbornness and the fear of abandonment he saw when he went to the vending machine, she had refused to let any of her willing friends in. 

Will leaves her to sleep then, wishing her goodnight. He himself sleeps poorly, shaken up that Kate had decided not to ask him for help and that she has been silently suffering for perhaps days.

* * *

Will wakes up early the next day and buys extra food at breakfast to take to Kate. Her roommates are obviously laughing at him, but given they had missed Kate spending the whole day in her room coughing and sneezing he didn’t care much for their opinion. He pulled back from that wave of judgment, the women had their own lives, two of them were varsity athletes and the other was involved in dozens of clubs. It was hardly surprising that Kate had succeeded in hiding from them.

She thanks him for the breakfast but keeps insisting it is completely unnecessary and fails to understand that regardless of it being unnecessary, he is going to do it anyway.

He spends his day checking in with her and encouraging her to come to eat dinner with the group. The longest period of time he goes without communicating with her is their shared economics of history class, in which he takes the best notes he may have ever taken in his life. They’re legible, detailed and clearly follow from point to point. He had promised Kate.

Immediately after the class, he fires off a quick message and heads towards Kate’s building. He climbs the stairs two at a time and then forces himself to slow down as he reaches her suite. He raps on the door and smiles at Kate when she opens it.

“Hi,” she whispers quietly, clearly, the sore throat has returned with a vengeance.

“Hi.” They stand at the door, smiling at each for a moment before Kate coughs and steps back to open the door. Will follows her in and they automatically sit on the couch in the shared room.

Will grabs his notebook from his backpack (he’s too easily distracted if he uses his laptop in class) and hands it to Kate. She flicks through the last few pages, before using her phone to snap a few pictures.

She smiles at him again. “Thanks, Will. You really didn’t have to do that.”

Will shakes his head and relaxes back on the couch, reaching his arms along the top. “Well, I did it because I am your friend so …”

Kate smiles at him and thanks him, again.

They remain in her dorm room for the next few hours, alternately working and chatting until Will realizes that Kate has gone from simply resting against his shoulder (what? he isn’t complaining) to sound asleep.

Closing his laptop, he packs away his books into his backpack and neatly stacked hers in a pile on the table with her laptop next to it.

“Kate?” He gently shakes her shoulder but she just hums at him. “Kate, if you’re going to sleep you should probably sleep in an actual bed?”

“Will let me sleep.”

Will rearranges her to be sitting up straight and begins to tug on her shoulders to have her stand up.

“Will we don’t have class till 10, you don’t have to leave yet. Stay with me.”

If not for fear of hurting her, Will may have accidentally dropped Kate against the back of the couch rather hard. As it was, he was able to retain his senses to give her one final shake.

She finally opens her eyes, looking at him a little blearily. “Oh god, was I asleep? I’m so sorry Will!”

Will shrugs and invites her to come for dinner as it is now late enough. She agrees and they head for the main cafeteria, finding a table of their friends who greet them with a variety of vulgar comments. They, of course, deny them but a few will not be silenced. They eat dinner, Will eagerly devouring the pizza, but comparing it unfavorably to real Chicago pizza.

When they finish, Kate and he walk back to her dorm, Will tells himself he is worried Kate is still ill and fragile but isn’t sure why he has actually offered to walk with her. He pauses at the door, but Kate invites him inside offhandedly and they sit on her bed watching the latest episode of Brooklyn 99 until Kate starts yawning and Will offers to leave. Will knows, honestly, he does know, that the friendship he shares with Kate is a little intense and perhaps overly involved, and the majority of their friends are certain that something else is going on but he isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with this. Except yell at Kenji each time he offers to take someone’s bet when Will is sitting right there. His feelings for Kate probably extend beyond the realm of friendship and he thinks hers might too. But, with her painful history and his own fear of screwing it all up, he is content to remain close friends.

Things remain like this, paused, but not quite stopped, for months.


	3. Chapter 3

But on the first really hot day of the summer, something changes.

He’s sitting on the humanities quad, resting his eyes after a two-hour discussion on the merits of various literary lenses when he hears giggles from somewhere near him, but disregards them, greedily soaking in the rays of sunshine.

He regrets that moments later when something freezing hits his chest. The shock is overwhelming and he hears himself curse loudly. Pushing himself up to a sitting position, Will realizes a bucket of ice water has been dumped onto him. Looking around, he sees Kate and her friend, Annalee, clutching each other to stay upright as they laugh hysterically.

He tries to regain his composure, smirking at them both. “I knew you had never forgiven me but I didn’t think you’d actively hold the grudge this long.” The two women continue to laugh and the students passing by are now sniggering too. Will notices then how Kate’s eyes are drawn, seemingly unconsciously, to where his soaking t-shirt is stuck to his chest. Seizing the chance to make a shift with minimal risk, he makes a bold decision.

In a single, swift movement, he pulls his t-shirt over his head and begins to wring it out on the grass. He’s fine being shirtless—thanks, free access to the gym—and he would willingly sit out here like this till his shirt dries, as he has no more classes today anyway. Projecting as careless an air as he can, he reclines onto the grass and spreads his t-shirt out next to him.

Carefully, he glances across at Kate and sees her staring, slightly open-mouthed. He looks away quickly, but he is sure she saw him looking. Will shuts his eyes, but he can feel the burn of her eyes on him.

Annalee mutters something above him. It sounds a lot like a derisive “straight people” and is followed by the loud announcement she is going to find her girlfriend, to whom she “actually talks because we’re adults”.

Will slowly opens his eyes again to see Kate considering him carefully, almost analytically. It is slightly unnerving, he will admit, but given how attractive he finds her intelligence and focus, he does not find it as unnerving as he perhaps should. He props himself up on one elbow and smirks up at her. She doesn’t flinch and instead steps closer, seemingly about to speak. They are momentarily interrupted by a piercing wolf whistle from the other side of the quad. Will glances over to see a blushing student elbowing his friend in the ribs. Preening slightly, Will turns back to Kate, still smirking.

Her careful consideration seems to have ended and she is smiling at him, gentle but knowing and Will feels unmoored again. She sits down slowly next to him, smoothing down her shorts needlessly.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you’re doing, Will Pinkerton.” She stares straight ahead, not looking at him, her eyes alight with a smile.

Despite himself, he shifts uncomfortably and glances away.

Kate looks at him again, a smile finally spreading across her face. “You’re flirting. Have been for ages. Not particularly well I might add,” she adds, leaning towards him slightly.

Will feel the acidic sting of panic rising in his throat and frantically pushes it back down. She’s still smiling, which he takes as a good sign.

She leans closer, not too close but definitely within the bounds of his personal space, even for them. Will’s eyes are drawn to her lips and he worries that she may have noticed but her eyes, he notices, keep trailing down towards his chest. Seizing the courage he felt earlier, Will leans towards Kate and opens his mouth, unsure of what he is going to say.

She beats him to it.

Kate presses her lips to his and Will’s panic becomes excitement, anticipation for what is already happening. The kiss is chaste, closed mouths and hands resting on the grass beside them.

All too soon, Kate is pulling back and Will, embarrassingly, leans forward to follow her lips. She smiles at him, that unsettling knowing smile he has begun to adore slightly more than he resents it. He cringes in on himself.

Kate stands and Will feels his confidence collapse from under him and accordingly he slumps on the grass, the breath knocked from his lungs.

She stands over him, frowning. “Will, are you just going to lie there?”

He stares up at her, uncomprehending. Sighing, Kate shakes her head in disbelief and crouches down next to him as he is drawn, again, towards her, sitting up embarrassingly quickly. 

She leans towards him, her mouth close to his ear and whispers slowly and as clearly as she can. “Will, you must know I’ve been flirting with you too. You’ve never needed an engraved invitation to come to my dorm before.”

Will has absolutely no idea where his earlier confidence has turned tail and run to, but his shock and desperation feel embarrassingly obvious. Kate seems not to have noticed for which he thanks whatever deities may exist. Slowly, he gets to his feet, picking up his still damp t-shirt. Kate is watching him, with a certain fondness in her gaze, and Will feels his heart jump suddenly.

They walk back towards Kate’s dorm, the same as all the times before but so very different. They are within touching distance of each other but neither taking the risk. But once Kate has opened the door to her room within the apartment suite, Will’s fickle confidence has reappeared.

He shuts the door firmly behind them and muscle memory takes over; he places both hands on her waist and, when she lifts her face to look up at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, he kisses her, open-mouthed and desperate. She presses back and Will remembers why it took him so long to make his move. She must sense his hesitation because she leans into him to whisper in his ear.

“Will, I’m dealing with my demons. I’m all in this.”

He grips her waist tighter, a little desperate, and he feels her smirk at him under the kiss. Will bites her lower lip and feels her gasp against him. He pulls away from her mouth to place kisses along her neck and the sound of her desperate breath has him sliding his hands lower on her back.

“Will,” she begins suddenly after many moments have passed. Her next gasp as he runs his teeth over her pulse point might have also been his name.

“Will. Will!” Her urgency cuts through the haze of his brain.

He lifts his head and stands up straighter, gazing down at her, mortifyingly aware of the sappy smile on his face.

She tries to frown at him but a smile keeps breaking through. “I have to finish my essay.”

Will smirks at her, raising his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Really Pinkerton!”

Will rolls his eyes and steps away. “If you’re sure.”

She huffs at him and Will adjusts the belt of his shorts, slightly shamefaced. Kate sits at her desk and pulls open her laptop. A surge of confidence through him has him stepping towards her, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to her neck, the spot that had made her gasp before. Her sudden intake of breath encourages him to press several more and her eyes flutter shut to Will’s joy. Finally, she lifts her hand to his face and kisses him softly, both of them reveling in the novelty, and pushes his chest gently. He raises his eyebrows and kisses her again, pulling away to smirk, covering his sudden fear. She huffs at him but her eyes are alight with joy and he slumps onto her bed, watching her lift her hand to her neck and shaking her head slightly as she begins to type.

He falls back in relief and despite himself drifts off to sleep with his feet hanging off the end, the tension he had unknowingly held in his muscles for months finally gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> It's nice to be back on here but this might the only thing I post for another extended period, life is pretty crazy right now.
> 
> Still, I'll be doing my best!  
> Eliza


End file.
